Belgian man found dead at house in Chiang Mai, murder suspected

[webfact]

 

The lifeless body of a Belgian man was discovered with a bag over his head after a Thai maid stumbled upon his suicide note in a Chiang Mai province residence. Thai police suspect murder rather than suicide.

 

The Thai maid reached out to San Kampaeng Police Station after finding the suicide note of a 73 year old Belgian businessman, Vachaudez, on the dining table inside the house in the San Kampaeng district of Chiang Mai province.

 

The maid reported that she returned to Vachaudez’s house on November 26 after taking a three-day leave to make a merit with her family in the Mae Taeng district. Upon arriving at the house, she went straight to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for Vachaudez.

 

When she finished cooking, she brought the food to the dining table and discovered a suicide note, which mentioned financial problems and relationship disappointment.

 

by Petch Petpailin

Photo via Facebook/ Amarin News

 

Full story: The Thaiger 2023-11-27

 

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[simon43]

Hmm, this often seems to happen when the only person who might be a witness to the crime is conveniently away for a few days....

[PJ71]

5 minutes ago, simon43 said:

Hmm, this often seems to happen when the only person who might be a witness to the crime is conveniently away for a few days....

how many cases have you studied?

[simon43]

1 minute ago, PJ71 said:

how many cases have you studied?

Many - all of them reported on AN/TV forum over the past 20+ years :)

[PJ71]

Just now, simon43 said:

Many - all of them reported on AN/TV forum over the past 20+ years :)

interesting, how many is that in total then?

[simon43]

21 minutes ago, PJ71 said:

interesting, how many is that in total then?

I'm not going to do your homework for you - go and search, probably more than a dozen times.

[MisterTee]

Cui Bono... financially, that is?

[Thorgal]

Quote from link :

 

Alain Vachaudez, is a model maker born in Belgium and settled in Thailand since 1985. 

 

In more than 15 years carving wax and assembling various materials, he has created hundreds of figurines, patterns, decorware, bronzes and more.

 

His Faeries Collection, containing more than 150 figurines, can be seen as a reflection of his esoteric and cultural quest. His skills allow him to carve intricate jewelry as well as more massive bronze items.

 

Alain has carved for years to supply specific creations to high standard design and jewelry businesses in Chiang Mai, where he is reputed as a skilled and professional model maker with a wide creative field. He also creates items for customers outside Thailand.

 

https://sofllovers.wixsite.com/faeriefigurines/about-avalon-creations

[Chris Daley]

Every week a new foreign business owner dies mysteriously.  The Thai silk guy was the first.  Some <deleted> from American started making money and upset the wrong people.

[Nick Carter icp]

5 minutes ago, Chris Daley said:

Every week a new foreign business owner dies mysteriously.  The Thai silk guy was the first.  Some <deleted> from American started making money and upset the wrong people.

 

  What is mysterious about the death in this story ?

 

doesn't seem to be any mystery here 

[Olav Seglem]

And the suicide letter was written in which language ????

[vangrop]

.If the note he left was handwritten, they should do graphological research to check if he wrote it. So yes then it was obviously suicide

[daveAustin]

2 minutes ago, Olav Seglem said:

And the suicide letter was written in which language ????

 

Why four question marks to one question?

Probably English. Unlikely Thai maid reads Flemish. Poor dude, albeit 73 isn't a bad innings. Not a nice scenario if one is murdered, though. 

[Thorgal]

2 minutes ago, daveAustin said:

 

Why four question marks to one question?

Probably English. Unlikely Thai maid reads Flemish. Poor dude, albeit 73 isn't a bad innings. Not a nice scenario if one is murdered, though. 

 

Quote from Thaiger link :

 

"The Thai maid added that suicide was possible because Vachaudez had financial problems and had divorced his Thai wife. According to the maid, Vachaudez had been running a resin casting business in Thailand for over 10 years and recently ran into financial problems."

 

"Vachaudez used to live in Chiang Mai with his Thai wife and children but they divorced. The wife and children later moved to live abroad. Vachaudez once told the maid that many of his friends had committed suicide and that he would do the same one day."

Edited November 27, 2023 by Thorgal

[Nick Carter icp]

2 minutes ago, Thorgal said:

 

Quote from Thaiger link :

 

"The Thai maid added that suicide was possible because Vachaudez had financial problems and had divorced his Thai wife. According to the maid, Vachaudez had been running a resin casting business in Thailand for over 10 years and recently ran into financial problems."

 

"Vachaudez used to live in Chiang Mai with his Thai wife and children but they divorced. The wife and children later moved to live abroad. Vachaudez once told the maid that many of his friends had committed suicide and that he would do the same one day."

 

  Thanks , but we can open the link and read it ourselves , that is why links are provided 

[ukrules]

From clicking the link it sounds to me like he knew what he was doing and planned it in quite some detail.

 

I'm skeptical that this involves anyone else.

It would depend if the bag was taped around his head sealing it, in which case he could have held his breath while it inflated with helium, then turned the gas off before breathing it in just in case it 'popped' leaving him with a broken bag, an empty tank and a headache.

 

Knowing the size and type of the bag would make a difference here of course. Maybe it was large and thin.....

Edited November 27, 2023 by ukrules

[Nick Carter icp]

Just now, ukrules said:

From clicking the link it sounds to me like he knew what he was doing and planned it in quite some detail.

 

I'm skeptical that this involves anyone else.

It would depend if the bag was taped around his head sealing it, in which case he could have held his breath while it inflated with helium, then turned the gas off before breathing it in just in case it 'popped' leaving him with a broken bag, an empty tank and a headache.

 

Knowing the size of the bag would make a difference here.

 

   It wouldn't have been a very big bag, otherwise he would have taken off and floated across the countryside 

[Thorgal]

10 minutes ago, Nick Carter icp said:

 

   It wouldn't have been a very big bag, otherwise he would have taken off and floated across the countryside 

 

The size of the bag is not relevant. The desaturation of oxygen content in the bag is, when lower than 90% vol.

The helium gas (lighter than oxygen) made the desaturation in this case.

Edited November 27, 2023 by Thorgal

[Nick Carter icp]

1 minute ago, Thorgal said:

 

I expected (unfortunately) such an answer.

 

Air balloons like in your picture use propane. Not helium...

 

  Helium is also used to inflate balloons and make them airborne and float in the air 

Inflating a bag with helium will cause the bag to take off and float .

It would depend on the size of the bag as to whether it would carry a person , hence this wouldn't have been a very big bag , otherwise he would have floated off somewhere  

[richard_smith237]

Quote

The crime scene suggested that Vachaudez had committed suicide by inhaling helium gas. However, the gas cylinder valve had been turned off and there was still some helium in the tank, suggesting foul play.

 

A couple of surprises with this story... both from an underlying cynicism of the standards and apathy of the usual policing here. 

 

1) It always seems any suspicious death is labelled 'suicide' by the BiB...   they did not take this route this time. 

2) It appears that actually intelligent police work was carried out...  good on 'em. 

 

That said... valid comments below.... finger printing the valve for anyone elses finger prints (or the absence of the deceaseds) could help here (although I'm not sure how easy that is)... also finger printing the pipe and bag (that my arm-chair AN CSI for the day).

 

36 minutes ago, ukrules said:

It would depend if the bag was taped around his head sealing it, in which case he could have held his breath while it inflated with helium, then turned the gas off before breathing it in just in case it 'popped' leaving him with a broken bag, an empty tank and a headache.

 

 

 

 

[steven100]

the maid is away for 3 days ...

during this time he is murdered ...

the maid says he talked about suicide before ...

the gas cyclinder valve was turned off ...   

 

so far the story sounds somewhat suspicious .....     was he forced to write the note?   ... 

[Nick Carter icp]

2 minutes ago, steven100 said:

the maid is away for 3 days ...

during this time he is murdered ...

the maid says he talked about suicide before ...

the gas cyclinder valve was turned off ...   

 

so far the story sounds somewhat suspicious .....     was he forced to write the note?   ... 

 

   If a person was planning to commit suicide, its likely that they would do it when no one would be there to stop them 

[PJ71]

3 hours ago, simon43 said:

I'm not going to do your homework for you - go and search, probably more than a dozen times.

It was you that made the claim, not me....

[ikke1959]

I think a horr5ible death if you suffocate yourself in a plastic bag.. a big unbelievable, but suicide is easy.. case closed

[ukrules]

13 minutes ago, ikke1959 said:

I think a horr5ible death if you suffocate yourself in a plastic bag.. a big unbelievable, but suicide is easy.. case closed

 

I once read an article in some detail about this subject which is heavily censored across most of the internet and it's not what you think it is.

 

You would imagine someone might be gasping for air as they breathe in a gas - but that's why they use the gas - you see, your body isn't intelligent enough to know if you're breathing air or some gas that contains no Oxygen.

 

So if you breathe in a gas there is no gasping, just a slow loss of conscioussness

Normally it's nitrogen these days, when you breathe it in your body doesn't know it's not air - you just drift off to sleep and don't wake up.

 

Some info on helium vs nitrogen usage https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29684846/

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by ukrules

[save the frogs]

6 hours ago, Thorgal said:

His Faeries Collection, containing more than 150 figurines, can be seen as a reflection of his esoteric and cultural quest. His skills allow him to carve intricate jewelry as well as more massive bronze items.

quite a few AN posters believe in faeries, so maybe some folks on here have collected his figurines. 

 

[freedomnow]

So finally it was self murder then - to line up with the headline.

[hotchilli]

15 hours ago, vangrop said:

.If the note he left was handwritten, they should do graphological research to check if he wrote it. So yes then it was obviously suicide

Some sense at last...

[PingRoundTheWorld]

15 hours ago, ukrules said:

From clicking the link it sounds to me like he knew what he was doing and planned it in quite some detail.

Assuming you believe the maid that he said he would commit suicide at some point - she could've been persuaded to say that for money or by threats. I don't know the guy, but it sounds odd to me that someone would confide in anyone - let along a maid - that they're about to off themselves.

 

There are some missing details like what language the suicide letter was in, whether the room was locked from the inside, and what was the nature of his alleged financial trouble - or to be specific if someone would have a motive to kill him. Simply shutting the valve off does not in itself rule out suicide, although it does raise questions - if he was conscious and shut it off because he changed his mind, why not take the bag off his head? Also- was he found close enough to the valve that it would make sense that he was the one who shut it off? etc...

[jacko45k]

Quote

The crime scene suggested that Vachaudez had committed suicide by inhaling helium gas. However, the gas cylinder valve had been turned off and there was still some helium in the tank, suggesting foul play.

I may not have been there, but to me this is not necessarily true. Once the bag was filled with Helium, there is little need for more.